


Late Nights and Sick Clowns

by caejones



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Minor Injuries, Sickfic, alfred is in this for like one line, arkham is awful, bruce is a good boyfriend, but he panics quite a lot, from a tumblr prompt, idk how to tag, joker has the flu, joker needs a hug, this is my first proper fic lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-01-31 22:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12691824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caejones/pseuds/caejones
Summary: Spending half your time in the streets and half your time in a run down asylum means you’re pretty likely to catch sicknesses and acquire injuries, but when Joker turns himself into Arkham one time after an argument with Bruce and the snow outside means he can’t spend any more time crashing on park benches, he’s already in bad shape.Basically a batjokes sickfic where Bruce cares for J after Arkham screwed him up yet again





	Late Nights and Sick Clowns

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, im that guy who usually posts long af headcanon posts on tumblr (transrichie-tozier) but i got a prompt and i actually wrote something half decent for it, so even tho its pretty short i'm putting it up here as well :P
> 
> Anon said: Joker is feeling under the weather and Batman takes care of him? -A classic, but still cute with a lot of batjokes potential X} -

Spending half your time in the streets and half your time in a run down asylum means you’re pretty likely to catch sicknesses and acquire injuries, but when Joker turns himself into Arkham one time after an argument with Bruce and the snow outside means he can’t spend any more time crashing on park benches, he’s already in bad shape; random spats with thugs in the narrows have lead to broken fingers and a shattered nose, he’s managed to catch the flu from somewhere, spending so much time alone has lead to him messing around with some questionable substances that the clown’s system don’t seem to be agreeing with. As usual, Arkham is completely useless when it comes to actually taking care of patients, and Joker has a super high drug tolerance so the doctors basically give him half a dozen ibuprofen pills and tell him to shut the fuck up.

It turns out J is allergic to aspirin, and whilst he doesn’t react too severely to the ibuprofen, it definitely screws him up quite a bit. He ends up just staying in his cell constantly, not even causing trouble for the guards, let alone the patients (although the guards still push him around whenever they get the chance, cause in their mind the Joker deserves it and the only time they can treat him like shit without getting a punch or two back is when he’s sick like this).

So naturally, after like three weeks of peace and quiet from the Joker and no complaints of him wrecking havoc at Arkham, Bruce gets a little suspicious and ends up paying a visit to his  ~~favourite~~  most troublesome foe, because the clown behaving himself usually means more trouble is around the corner.

What he finds though, is a Joker who has more bruised skin than clear, and who can barely breath through his coughing and nasal congestion. The clown hasn’t been able to get hold of any makeup during this trip to the asylum, but the rashes around his mouth and the bags under his eyes mean that he looks like a ghastly version of his normal self - which Batman finds more disturbing than he does a bare-faced J.

Bruce knows then and there that he's gonna have to get the clown out of Arkham, because as much as he’s hesitant to break such a dangerous criminal out of the asylum, no one deserves this kind of neglect and mistreatment. So Bruce leaves for a maximum of ten minutes to snoop around the building and find a decent way to sneak J out - but when he gets back to Joker’s cell, its empty.  _Shit._ Even as ill as he is, the Joker will always manage to be a threat to the public, so Bruce heads back to the car to let Gordon know that the clown’s back on the streets and needs to be found immediately, he swears to himself that it’s not just him worrying over Joker’s well-being, he’s not that biased and anyway - 

_Oh._

There’s the Joker. There’s this man, this escaped criminal, this woefully sick boyfriend -

This wonderfully smart  _idiot_ , sat in the front seat of the batmobile, grinning despite the fact that he's shaking violently from his fever and all he has to say is,  _heya Bats, ya miss me?_

Except it comes out all croaky from coughing his lungs up constantly and he hasn’t slept in weeks so he muddles up his words, and Bruce hasnt seen anything so pitiful in his life as the Joker giggling at himself through the tears streaking his cheeks

And that’s how Bruce finds himself driving home to Wayne Manor at three in the morning with a barely conscious criminal mastermind laying across the back seats of his car, using the cape of the batsuit as a blanket and quietly muttering about how much he missed  _his Batsy._

Alfred has been made aware of the situation, and has already set up the bedroom across the hall from Bruce’s, the one that has unofficially been marked as the Joker’s. When Bruce walks through the front door, carrying his supposed arch nemesis bridal-style and pressing chaste kisses against the clown’s forehead, the butler hurries to retrieve their box of medical supplies and leave the two in peace.

Bruce hasn’t seen the joker this fragile in a long time, possible ever. Despite being bundled up in the thick duvet that J had crawled into immediately upon reaching his bedroom, the green haired man refuses to let go of Bruce’s cape, hugging it like a favourite childhood toy and pathetically whimpering when the billionaire attempts to retrieve it. Eventually, Bruce lets up and moves to check Joker’s injuries, but the clown retreats further under the bed-sheets. 

Bruce takes off the cowl and the rest of his suit, changing into a t-shirt and some pajama bottoms, and goes downstairs to make some soup for his guest. The billionaire can’t cook for shit, and the soup is just warmed up stuff from a can, but the Joker likely hasn’t eaten properly for weeks and his ribs are sticking out in a rather alarming way, so Bruce’s main concern is feeding him as quickly as possible.

He doesn’t know all the details of J’s illness yet and the clown likely wont want to talk about it for a good few days, so right now all Bruce can do is slowly build his strength back up, and tend his wounds, and hold back the Jokers hair  ~~(that hasn’t been cut for around six months, and definitely hasn’t been washed since the clown was last at the manor, which was just over a month ago, and what is Bruce going to do with this ridiculous mess of a man)~~  whilst he throws up the little contents of his stomach, and just wait. All he can do is wait for Joker to open up about what the doctors at Arkham have subjected him to this time, and how the guards took advantage of his weakened state, and how he’d slept on the streets or in abandoned warehouses for weeks because of a stupid argument that they had and Bruce cant even remember what it was about but it was  _stupid and this was Bruce’s fault for kicking the Joker out what was he thinking-_

A faint, scratchy voice calls him from up the stairs, and Bruce suddenly forgets about the argument and about the canned chicken soup that he was heating on the stove. He’s up the staircase and in the bedroom faster than he can justify, and J calls him again from the en-suite. The clown is sat on the cold tile floor with his head in his hands, and when Bruce enters the room he smiles weakly up at his Batman.

They stay in the bathroom for an hour, with J dry heaving and coughing and sobbing at random intervals because  _it hurts, Bruce, everything hurts,_ until finally Joker’s stomach settles and Bruce can get him to drink some water and keep it down. He carries the  ~~madman, the criminal, the murderer~~  the man who he is so unreasonably in love with back to bed, and that is where the clown falls into his first peaceful sleep in a month: sat between Bruce’s legs whilst the vigilante leans against the headboard, his pale forehead resting on the other’s chest, with tan arms wrapped protectively around his aching shoulders.


End file.
